


patience is a virtue (i'll reap what i've sown)

by lavenderlotion



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Betrayal, Con Artists, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flirting, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Making Out, Mind Control, On the Run, Post-Canon, Precognition, Teasing, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Threats of Violence, Topping from the Bottom, Trans Female Character, Transphobia, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderlotion/pseuds/lavenderlotion
Summary: She watches.She wants.
Relationships: Nick Gant & Cassie Holmes, Nick Gant/Cassie Holmes
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	patience is a virtue (i'll reap what i've sown)

**Author's Note:**

> first & maybe only fic in this fandom! let me know what you think :)

Cassie is always seeing. Always watching. Her eyes never still and the future spreads out before her in a tangle of webs that took her years to learn how to read. Her vision is still blurry, sometimes, but she’s  _ always _ seeing, even when she doesn't want to. When she was still young her mother told her the  _ real _ gift of a Watcher is being able to weave the threads of fate together. The future is constantly shifting, changing, never stagnant and always moving, but—

The  _ real _ power, what the Watchers that make a difference yield, comes from twisting fate. Seeing the threads is a gift, but weaving them together is  _ power _ and Cassie hungers, aches,  _ craves _ that power with each breath she takes. 

She sees. She watches. 

She wants. 

* * *

They don’t stick around for long. 

* * *

One day she turns to Nick and spends a minute staring at the way the setting sun makes his skin glow. He’s flushed tan and frowning as he drives them somewhere. Cassie doesn’t ask where they’re going—she doesn’t want Nick to think that she doesn’t know—but they’ve left Hong Kong and wherever he’s headed, he’s taking her with him. 

Cassie’s always been curious, even if it’s a habit she’s tried to curb. She’s a Watcher; her mother always told her it was more than just a classification, that it was a calling. 

She didn't understand until she met Nick, who watched for his shadow over his shoulder, who never rested, not really, who ran and ran and never got away. She didn’t understand until she watched  _ him  _ watch. Until he threw himself into an absolute disaster of a situation because he didn’t. 

Now Cassie watches. The long stretches of highway. The women who work out of the motels they stay at. Nick, leaned back in the driver's seat, tension in his jaw, fingers tanned dark and loose on the wheel. He never says where they’re going. 

She doesn’t ask. 

* * *

“She’s in America,” she tells him, quietly, and his eyes turn to her with a glare that feels piercing and Cassie sinks into her seat. Her fingers wrap around the cool porcelain mug holding her tea, and she draws his shoulders in. 

“I can’t tell you where,” she whispers, minutes later, looking up under her lashes with worry in her gut. 

But Nick doesn’t seem to care, not with the way he clears his throat, and, voice gruff, says, “It’s a start then.”

* * *

She’s always been good at lying. 

* * *

Nick is heartbroken. Cassie is heartbroken watching him, his pretty blue eyes filled with something like sorrow. She knows it’s not her fault but she’s  _ thirteen _ and sometimes, when she can hear Nick spilling his grief over the shitty motel showers, she blames herself. 

She needs to see more. 

* * *

It’s only her and Nick for  _ months _ that stretch out across a sugary-sweet summer. Nick is a conman, through and through, and Cassie  _ sees _ more than she’s ever seen before. They work together well; Cassie always knew they would, like she always knew Nick would say yes, way back when. He teaches her to pick-pocket and she’s smaller, fingers nimbler; Cassie can slip into a crowd in a way Nick  _ can’t, _ with his strong jaw and wide-set shoulders and the way he carries himself, never quite small enough. 

Cassie is small. She’s pretty. She has a new contact she meets with every six months and little white and blue pills she takes every day—Nick had asked her, once, with a quiver in his voice and worry in his eyes and Cassie had laughed and laughed—and no one suspects her, not of anything. 

She slips slim fingers into pockets. Draws the attention of big men and takes everything they have with nothing more than a pretty smile. 

Lies awake and wants and wants and  _ wants,  _ but can’t have, not yet, not any time soon. 

But she will. 

* * *

The first time a con goes bad, when big, bruising fingers wrap around her wrist so tight she cries out, Nick Moves the man into an alley so hard he doesn’t stand back up. Nick rushes her down the street, tucks her close under his arm—his bare face and her dark makeup let them pass as a couple—and he keeps her close till they get to the motel. 

Later, when she’s showered and wearing his shirt and boxers as sleep wear, Nick presses ice to the bruises on her wrist so gently she aches for him in a way that makes her wonder if she’ll ever stop. 

His stubble scratches her skin when he kisses it better. 

* * *

Her sight improves. She’s a Watcher, and she comes into herself as her and Nick exist together. She sees Kira’s return and doesn’t want it; she sees a future sprawling out that she wants to weave together. Her fingers itch to knit fate into the shape she wants and frustration makes them shake but—

The future takes time, her mother had once told her. Watchers are patient, they need to be. 

She needs to be patient. 

The future takes time. 

* * *

He praises her, sometimes. When her sight gets them out of a rough spot. When she cons a rich man into an expensive dinner and takes his wallet as a reward. 

_ Good girl _ twists her stomach into warm knots of airy arousal, sweet and sticky like cotton candy. She comes on her fingers thinking about it, rinses pearly come down the sink, and thinks about it more. 

She needs to be patient. 

* * *

Kira comes for them a few weeks after Cassie celebrates her fifteenth birthday at a sweet little diner where the older waitresses coo at her. Nick has a beard thick enough he looks like trouble and Cassie’s still playing around with eyeliner that makes her look older. She presses their feet together under the table and he doesn’t pull away, not once. 

It’s one of the best birthdays she can remember. 

When Nick is paying, after they’ve spent hours laughing over milkshakes he watched her drink, a sweet, older lady pulls her aside. 

“That man looks at you like he’d walk through fire for ya,” she tells Cassie seriously, worry in her eyes but her smile light. 

And Cassie, a grin on her face and hair twisted into pigtails, laughs and looks over at him already watching her, and says, “I know he will.” 

* * *

Kira says it’s luck they managed to find each other again. The future shifts into something new the minute she joins them. Cassie draws the same gravestone thirty two times before they run a con that lets her sketch out a sweet, black kitty she wants to meet one day. 

Days stretch into weeks of being on the run without a purpose before Nick and Kira start whispering to each other, secrets building between them, and they think Cassie doesn't know. 

They decide, “without” her, that they need to take down Division. 

She tells them it isn’t going to be easy. 

It won't  _ ever _ be easy

* * *

It’s difficult, folding Kira into them after almost two years of Cassie and Nick living on the road together. Kira runs her own cons, says she wants her own cash just in case, and then uses the money to get Cassie her own room. It happens only once, since Nick never allows it again. Kira takes the front seat which Cassie doesn’t care about. She stretches out across the back, eyes on Nick’s profile. She sketches the shape of his beard till it turns grey then sketches it some more. 

She never draws Kira. 

* * *

Cassie knows they fuck. Kira leaves her panties in the sink every time. 

Her fingers itch to thread, but she tells herself to be patient. 

* * *

They kiss. Once. Nick is laughing at a joke she made, something silly she can’t remember minutes after she said it, and his eyes are crinkled with happiness. She can’t hold herself back, not with what she knows, what she  _ sees, _ and she steps close, too close, right into his space and she presses their lips together and Nick—

He kisses back. Fits his hands to her straight hips and draws her in. He looms over her and she  _ loves  _ it, _ loves him, _ and his lips taste like cheap beer and his laughter, and he smells like what she thinks home might, if she ever gets to have one. 

Nick pushes her away and paints disgust across his face that doesn’t meet his eyes, which are dark and hooded with something Cassie thinks must be arousal. She closes her eyes and tips her head back because Nick is still holding her hips. His hands are like bands and his warmth seeps into her skin. She could break him. He could hold all the scattered pieces of her together. 

“No,” he says, forceful, like  _ he _ can Push. 

Cassie laughs, kisses him again when he lets her close, and then brings herself off, alone in the shower, when Nick gets himself drunk. 

* * *

Cassie tells them they’re fucked a month before Kira even gets a source. She draws a cracked plate eleven times in two days and has no idea what it means until Kira brings them to a small, forgotten diner to meet someone. Nick slurps down a plate of noodles but Cassie sees the chip in her soup bowl and empties her stomach in the bathroom when her sight goes black. 

No. No, she isn’t going to let this happen. She’s a Watcher. Keeping them safe is  _ her _ job. Keeping  _ Nick _ safe is her job. She cusses to her reflection as she gargles water that does jack shit to get the taste of bile out of her throat. She wants to scream and bites through her lip instead. 

Why didn’t she see this sooner? 

Fuck. 

_ Fuck.  _

Cassie leaves the bathroom quickly, spinning around a too-fast waiter and picking up a fork from an empty table. The Sniff Kira is batting her eyelashes at isn’t falling for her shit, Cassie can see that across the room and wonders how the hell Nick can’t. He asks her why they’ve come to him and she moves faster, her heart racing in her chest as a vision flashes, and she can’t let Nick die, she  _ won’t  _ let Nick, not now, not after she saved him once, she—

Dear God, it takes a lot of strength to get the teeth of the fork all the way through his hand but she brings it down with all her might to embed the metal into the table. She only takes a heaving breath once he screams. 

She takes the gun out of his waistband and hands it to Nick without taking her eyes off the Sniff. 

“Tell us where Division is,” Cassie whispers, voice high and cheerful, “or we’ll kill your daughter.”

* * *

“I know about your stupid little crush,” Kira whispers, sugar-sweet into Cassie's ear. Cassie snorts. “It's not going to happen.”

“Okay,” Cassie says, not bothering with anything more. She flips her sketchbook closed—she stopped using scratch pads a couple of years ago—and leans back in the motel's chair.

For the birthday they spent in the diner, Nick had gifted her a pack of lead pencils she still uses.

Kira makes a noise of frustration that makes Cassie snort. They’re still running. 

They won’t be for long.

“You're just a  _ freak,”  _ Kira's words are filled with venom and Cassie feels the gentle pressure of her mind, trying to Push, and Cassie grins widely when nothing happens. 

She’s been fucked with enough to keep her out, even if she’s strong.

“You're forgetting something, you dumb bitch,” Cassie says, humour in her voice and a smile on her face as she casts her eyes over to where Nick is sleeping, shirtless and gorgeous, like a feast for Cassie's eyes, “I see the future.”

* * *

Arizona is  _ sweltering _ and Cassie would absolutely despise it if it didn’t mean Nick was basically  _ always _ shirtless these days. Considering the sweltering heat results in near-constant eye candy, she just hates it. She’s taken to wearing a pair of little shorts she once Watched Nick take off her in a future that didn’t happen, and as Cassie skips up to the ice cream’s truck serving window, she can feel his heavy eyes on her ass. 

She orders for them both and waits, Nick a step behind her even though he steps up to pay. She gives a little wiggle of her hips and rolls her eyes at him and watches, doesn’t ask. 

Cassie walks them through the park, kicking about a stone she drew three years ago. Nick’s popsicle is getting the better of him, dripping in the heat, and she watches, wide-eyed and breathless as he sucks the whole length into his mouth, hollows his cheeks, then licks over the sticky webbing of his fingers. 

Jesus Christ, Cassie thinks, her own ice cream turning liquid in her cup. 

She must make a noise, something pure and wanting, and Nick looks up at her. 

“What’re ya looking at?” Nick asks, teasing and playful, everything he doesn’t let himself be when Kira is around. 

Cassie raises an eyebrow at him and doesn’t even bother to answer. 

His smile crinkles his eyes. 

* * *

Nick puts his arm around Cassie’s shoulder and she sinks into him. She draws her knees up high and presses her bare legs into his side, and he pulls her closer still. 

Her skirt rides up, indecent, and his hand is so warm against her skin. 

Kira is watching them from the other side of the motel, furious, as the movie blares on. Cassie knows that Kira sees how easily Nick pulls her closer, how effortlessly he touches. They both know he doesn’t touch her like that. 

Cassie smiles. It’s almost time. 

* * *

They spend a summer running from a team of Bleeders. In the end, Nick brings a building down on them and Cassie pretends only his hands stain red. That night she wakes up screaming, screaming,  _ screaming _ until her voice is hoarse and Nick holds her, whispers soothing words into her ears. 

The next morning Cassie forces herself out of bed and into the back seat of the car before the other two are even up. 

She doesn’t open her sketchbook for three days. 

She never stops seeing. 

* * *

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kira asks and Cassie laughs in her face.

“You are  _ nothing, _ do you hear me?” Kira’s voice is sharp with fury, like blades, and her eyes go dark, iris swallowed up by pupil, and Cassie sees her own grin in the pearly reflection. “You’re nothing but a sick freak who thinks they’re all that and you know what? You’re not even a real girl, are you? Does Nick know what you hide under your skirts and dresses, you little slut?”

She goes flying across the room. 

“Kira, what the hell?” Nick roars. His hands clench into fists and he’s  _ furious, _ lined with unbidden anger and his eyes alight with pure rage and he’s... fuck, he’s so gorgeous. 

“Nick,” Kira starts, simpering, submissive, her head tipping to the side as Cassie watches.

Kira’s eyes go dark again. 

Cassie Watches. 

Waits. 

Patience. 

* * *

Division is close. 

Division is  _ too  _ close but they’re still too fucking far. 

* * *

She breaks Kira’s nose and Nick ices her fingers, whispering sweet words. Cassie doesn’t care, not when some fucking Stitch-for-hire had almost pulled Nick apart because Kira didn’t listen to her. 

She’s a Watcher, and Nick is hers to protect. She isn’t going to let anyone hurt him again. 

* * *

Kira betrays them. 

She’s been working with Division for the last year, and she tries to turn them in. 

Cassie sees too much and only shows a fraction, so Kira has no idea what’s waiting for  _ her. _

Nick has connections, sure, but Cassie has always had her own. 

A Bleeder knocks Kira out. Cassie watches, her hand held in Nick’s tight,  _ desperate _ grip as a Wiper, a pretty slip of a thing Cassie met once upon a time, takes  _ everything. _

They leave with only a few scrapes across Nick’s arms, seeing as he’d been knocked around by Division Movers until the team Cassie put together had shown up and taken care of them. She ushers him into their motel room and cleans him—they’ve done this before, so many times that Cassie can’t, won’t, count, and each time feels like the first. 

Her fingers shake as she presses them to his warm skin. 

Nick’s breath hitches when she dabs his scrapes with peroxide, and then he lets out a long breath when she covers them with polysporin. 

She can tell there’s something stewing under the surface; she can see it in the set of his shoulders and the jut of his jaw and the way he’s so carefully holding himself together. Cassie could hold him together. 

When she’s done, she turns her back, rests against the sink and hangs her head. Her hair falls in front of her face and she’s glad. So glad. She hates how good it feels. 

“Did you know?” Nick asks her,  _ furious, _ veins standing out against his forehead and anger steeped through his words. He’s shouting and gesturing and the bedroom is shaking. 

“Of course,” she tells him, but she doesn’t smile. “I knew from the beginning.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” he roars, and Cassie stands up and steps forward because his knees buckle, and he falls into her arms, and he sobs, “why didn’t you tell me?” until his voice is hoarse. 

* * *

Cassie brushes Nick’s hair back from his forehead as he wakes, eyes blinking open. 

There’s a sweet smile on his face at first. She watches as he remembers, as old, bitter heartbreak makes his eyes leak. She hates how bad he’s hurting and hates even more how happy it makes her. 

“Did she ever love me?” he asks, broken, gutted, so much pain in his voice that Cassie aches for him. 

“I can’t see the past,” she whispers. She’s never lied to him, not directly, and she won’t start. “This has always been a possibility. It... came in and out. I saw it more often, over the last two years.”

“You’ve known for that long?” he demands, ripping out of her arms. 

“I wanted to—” Cassie cuts herself off, words bitten behind her teeth. “I should have told you. I didn’t know how.”

It’s a half-truth. 

She’s always been good at lying. 

She’s better at being patient. 

* * *

“This is Rashad,” Cassie says, a smile on her face and a little thrill in her heart. “They’re... a Wiper, of sorts.”

“You’re the one that wiped Kira,” Nick whispers, the same hoarse tone he uses whenever she comes up. 

“Happy I made an impression,” they purr, giving Nick a once over that he seems to appreciate, even if he isn’t interested. “I can do a lot.”

“I...” Nick starts, stops. He tangles their fingers together and squeezes hard. “I want everything she put in my head gone.”

Rashad’s lips pull into a beaming grin, and they say, “Oh, darling, you came to the right place.” 

* * *

It takes weeks for Nick to speak. He curls around her every night and keeps her close, close, so close sometimes it feels like he’s trying to Move them into one. Every morning Cassie wakes up hard. Some mornings she ruts against him until she comes, his beautiful blue eyes boring into her own. There’s still heartbreak, burning and acidic and nasty, under everything he holds for her. 

He’s always hard, when they’re like this, but he doesn’t do anything until he slips out of bed. He comes into the toilet, Cassie breathing heavy against the other side of the bathroom door. 

* * *

“Call me stubborn,” Cassie says into Nick’s mouth one night when he comes in her hand, against her belly, hot and wanting and delicious against her tongue when he pushes sodden fingers into her mouth, “but I would have never allowed a future to happen where we didn’t end up right here.”

* * *

She sinks down slow and heavy, breathing through a stretch that barely burns after how slow Nick prepared her. Her nipples are rosy red and Nick’s lips are bruised dark from sucking on them. Cassie’s nails dig her into her thighs as they shake, quiver, pulse uncomfortably as she takes Nick in and in and in. 

_ God,  _ it feels so good. Better than anything else. Nick is searing a band of heat into her and she feels like she’s  _ unravelling.  _

Cassie arches her back with a sharp cry, breathing heavy, heavy,  _ God _ so heavy as Nick's fingers brush over the jut of her hip. The calluses are so gentle she can feel it in her core, right where he’s pressing into her as she rolls her hips and takes him deeper, fuck,  _ deeper  _ still because Nick goes on forever, this is going to go on forever, she’s  _ in _ forever—

Nick is so beautiful under her. His eyes are so pretty and pale, the eastern sun tanning him dark. Cassie’s still fair and the sight of her thighs against his thighs makes her belly warm. Her cock lays against his bush of pubic hair while she catches her breath, and Nick’s hands move to the centre of her back as his stomach flexes to push him up. 

He tastes like lemonade and laughter, like patience, and he smells like her home. 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://lavender-lotion.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> kudos aren’t the same as getting a comment, not even close. so a comment, as short and sweet or as sprawling and sporadic as you can manage, would be _greatly_ appreciated! don't know what to comment? how about _”this was great!”_ or _“awesome work!”_


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